


There's Still Hope Said Pandora

by smaragdbird



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Apocalypse, Isolation, M/M, Plague, inspired by contagion and the maze runner, tiny Tony & Rhodey cameo is tiny
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-23
Updated: 2015-07-23
Packaged: 2018-04-10 18:35:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,773
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4402802
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smaragdbird/pseuds/smaragdbird
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When a deadly plague hits the world, Steve is immune thanks to his serum.<br/>Brock Rumlow, however, most likely isn't.<br/>476 days are a long time to stay inside.</p>
            </blockquote>





	There's Still Hope Said Pandora

**Author's Note:**

  * For [BlueManta](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlueManta/gifts).



Brock hadn’t left the apartment in four hundred seventy six days. It was a nice apartment, a bedroom, a living room with a kitchen and a bathroom. There was also a little antechamber that he never set a foot into. Steve used it as a decontamination room.

When Shield furnished the apartment for Steve they put 245 books in three bookshelves. It was painfully obvious that whoever was responsible for picking them out, didn’t have a clue about what Steve liked.

Brock read them all.

There were seven books that Steve bought himself, during his online shopping spree a few weeks before the Plague hit. Brock remembered that afternoon better than he did most of the last 476 days. They hadn’t been together yet but Pierce had already ordered him to keep a close eye on Steve. Ostensibly he had come over to get to know Steve better now that he was going to co-lead Strike and in the end he had watched Steve buy every single Disney movie.

Brock could recite all of them from memory by now.

He had a routine he followed, starting from Steve leaving in the morning to Steve returning in the evening. The serum had made him immune so Steve gave in to his hero complex and helped to maintain what was left of civilization. 

Brock meanwhile spent his morning trying to find a pirate station on the radio and then pushing his body almost to breaking point. If he was too exhausted to think he could make through another day. 

/

The last official estimate was that 2% of the world’s population would be immune. Best case scenario meant that 140 million people would be left worldwide once this was over. 

There had been witch hunts against the Immune by fanatics who thought the plague was an act of god and those not afflicted were sent by the devil.

Steve had shot two of them a few hours ago when a group of them tried to storm a clinic where the few scientists left were still looking for a cure or a vaccine or anything. There were no time or resources to bury the dead or even cremate them so the bodies were simply dumped in walled off parts of the city.

Most of the Immune still didn’t stay in those sections for longer than necessary. The smell alone was bad enough and the corpses were breeding ground for diseases just as deadly as the Plague. But Steve had Brock to think about. The rations the government handed out as payment for those who still worked to maintain order were too small to feed two people.

When he came home, he could see Brock standing at the window, waiting for him like Rapunzel in her tower. Only that Steve wasn’t the prince freeing him but the wicked witch imprisoning him there in the first place.

“Rough day?” Brock asked him when he came into the apartment, scrubbed down and in fresh clothes. He had washed his hands until they had almost started bleeding. He wasn’t going to take any chances.

“What would you know about it?” Steve replied bitterely. Before Brock could answer he rubbed a hand over his face. “Sorry.”

“Guess that answers my question. How many did you kill?”

Steve gave him a surprised look. “Two. How – “

“Heard it on the radio. Figured you’d be involved Captain Hero”, Brock drawled.

“Fuck you”, Steve said but there was no heat behind it.

Brock grinned. “Later.” He eyed Steve’s bag. “What’s for dinner?”

“Clams. Lots of clams.” Twenty tins of clams to be exact. At least it was better than eating plain rice and vitamin pills.

“You know the way to a man’s heart”, Brock said dryly but he was hungry enough that his mouth still watered.

/

Sometimes, only when Steve was out, Brock wondered about the Winter Soldier, wondered if he was still on ice, kept there until the power would finally fail. Maybe it already had long enough for him to crawl out, disorientated and alone. Maybe he had succumbed to the plague, maybe someone had killed him, maybe he was out there somewhere, alive and surviving thanks to the same artificial immunity Steve had.

He hadn’t told Steve about any of it, not about Hydra, not about the Winter Soldier. Partly because it was all meaningless now and partly because he felt entitled to one last secret. After 503 days there weren’t too many of those left.

/

On the 617th day they got visitors. That in it itself was unusual enough to be alarming. In the early high chaos days there had been raiders but those died quickly enough. Brock might not be able to leave the apartment but he was still a decent enough shot.

Steve went to check while Brock waited, weapon in hand. The door was thin enough for him to hear everything.

“Mr. Stark? Colonel Rhodes?” Brock’s surprise was just as strong as the one he could hear in Steve’s voice. “What are you doing here?”

“Took some time to find you”, he could hear Stark say. “Can we come in?”

“Sorry, no.”

“You’re hiding someone in there?”

“Are you really here to ask me who I’m sharing my apartment with?”

“Touché.”

“They’re immune too?” That was Colonel Rhodes’ voice or so Brock assumed since he had never met the man.

“We don’t know.” And given a failure rate of 98% neither of them was keen to test it to find out.

“The United Nations are setting up camps for the immune”, he heard Colonel Rhodes say. “They know they cannot keep up as it is for much longer.”

“No”, Steve replied immediately and Brock rolled his eyes.

“You can’t stay here forever”, Tony said. “Sooner or later it will all collapse.”

He didn’t have to see Steve to know how he squared his shoulders and met Tony’s eyes directly, when he said, “We’ll make that decision when it comes to it.”

“Here’s the coordinates of the closest camp”, Colonel Rhodes said. “Take them, just in case.”

Brock heard Steve’s lackluster “Thanks”, before the door was closed. When he came back inside he took one look at Brock and said, “Not a word.” And tossed a crumbled piece of paper into the bin.

Brock fished it out later while Steve was in the shower.

He liked to have back up plans.

/

“There’s one good thing about this whole mess”, Brock said one night over dinner. “If this hadn’t happened we would’ve totally broken up by now.”

Steve laughed as if it was the funniest thing he’d heard in a long time. He didn’t have to know that their relationship would’ve ended with one of them dead, because Steve would have never joined Hydra.

Perhaps it was better the Plague had hit before Hydra could. Sometimes he wanted to tell Steve, especially on the bad days, just to rip it all apart. But he never did. Hydra died with the rest of humanity.

/

On the 837th day they left Washington. There was no electricity, no food, no water and it was either leave or starve. The wind on his skin felt foreign as did the sun and the rain and the sheer wideness of the world around them.

He could feel Steve’s eyes on him the whole time and knew he was waiting for the same things Brock did. They hadn’t met any other people yet. Maybe he would get lucky. Maybe he was immune after all.

Three days after they had left he started getting headaches that he didn’t tell Steve about. Irritability followed the loss of appetite and the constant thirst no matter how much he drank.

Brock gave himself another week.

“Let’s go to the beach”, he told Steve. “Might as well die with a nice view.”

Steve wasn’t the kind of man to refuse a dying man’s last wish.

Five days after they left, Steve had to carry him. The tiredness and dizziness were too much to be able to stand let alone walk. His skin was dry and painfully tight and his head was killing him. He couldn’t tell whether the noise he was hearing was waves or just the blood rushing in his ears.

But when Steve set him down in the warm sand, he was reasonably sure that they had reached the ocean again even if he was too tired to actually open his eyes.

“Didn’t know you liked the sea that much”, Steve said as he sat down behind him, leaning Brock against his chest.

“I would’ve preferred to die in battle but we both know you’re not good enough to beat me”, Brock slurred as well as his swollen tongue would let him.

Not long now.

/

Steve hadn’t felt so fucking helpless since Bucky had fallen from the train. Only that had been over quick. The memory still hurt like hell but it had been better than watching Brock slip in and out of consciousness for days while waiting for his inevitable death.

Maybe they shouldn’t have left Washington. Maybe another twenty or fifty or hundred days would’ve made a difference. Maybe if they had taken a different route Brock wouldn’t have gotten sick so soon. 

Two days, three, then four and all Steve could do was wait and watch. Very few lingered on longer than two weeks, Steve hadn’t heard of anyone making it past three.

“Steve?” Within an instant he was at Brock’s side. For the first time in a week his eyes were clear.

“Hey”, Steve said softly. “I’m here. How you’re feeling?”

“Better”, Brock replied, his words weak but not as slurred as before. “Which makes no sense.” He managed to sit up by his own strength.

Steve had seen thousands die of the Plague and none of this had ever happened. He could feel a grin splitting his face before his brain had wrapped around itself the idea. Steve kissed him. Brock tasted like foulness but he was so undeniably alive that Steve didn’t care. “I’ve been praying for a miracle and you’re what I get?” He could feel tears in his eyes.

“Hey! Am I not good enough?” Brock asked mockingly.

“Didn’t think I was going to be that lucky”, Steve replied and kissed him again.

/

A week later Brock felt strong enough to be on the road again.

“You’re sure?” Steve asked for the thousandth or so time. Brock hadn’t counted. He was done counting. Instead he gave Steve a long look. 

“Think we’ll find one of the camps Rhodes mentioned?” He asked instead.

Brock dangled the coordinates between his fingers. “Pretty sure we will.”

**Author's Note:**

> Hope the ending is happy enough for you :)


End file.
